Those Hats

My dad and I talked recently, and he asked an interesting question. “Why don’t you and your brother wear those veteran hats like the Korean War and Vietnam War guys?” He told me he saw a guy on the evening news wearing a Korean War veteran hat and that it felt like people only wear those hats for attention. I explained that, in many ways, that’s true. I went on to say that I give a pass to any of the Vietnam, Korea, and remaining WWII veterans because they deserve all the attention they can get. It gets a little sticky regarding the GWOT generation for me. I tend to feel similarly to my dad there, with some exceptions.

Growing up, we were chastised any time we did anything that sought attention. When we were with our dad, it was a mortal sin to draw attention and make him look bad in public. This was likely a projection of his social anxiety and his rigid upbringing. The nail that sticks out gets hammered. The irony here is I’ve spent so many years making videos and doing public-facing things, but I still cringe when all eyes are on me. I don’t want to be the “hey, look at me” guy. 

The first week we were back on American soil, I went to the PX at Camp Atterbury and bought a hat that said “Operation Iraqi Freedom Combat Veteran.” We’d survived a year in Iraq. We tried to drink all the alcohol in the whole world. We were veterans now. I wore that hat with pride I also imbibed all of the spicy liquids I could. That homecoming is a blur. With my head held back, I howled drunkenly, “I’m an effing veteran.” We let our guards down for the first time in nearly eighteen months. I earned that stupid hat. But I don’t wear it anymore.

I bought the hat ironically. There was a running joke that once we returned home, we would buy those hats the old timers wore. This would let everyone know that we mattered too. America seemed to worship soldiers and service members at the time. Since the war was still new, we figured we were in an elite class. We not only signed up to protect our nation just in case, we went and did the damn thing. The war was young, and so were we.  Little did we know how misguided we were. That war we all wanted to participate in before it was over lasted an entire generation.

I don’t wear that hat. I’m not ashamed of my service. I don’t want to be thanked for my service, and I don’t want to answer those questions. People with zero experience in the military make snap judgments on the merits of your service given “what you did over there.” They don’t realize that we all aren’t door-kicking freedom fighters with bandoliers of linked ammunition across our chests. Most of us just supported the actions of those few badasses. The veteran community can eat their own at times as well. We are quick to judge and quicker to call someone out. I’m as guilty as anyone. The truth is, there are quite a few “professional veterans” who need that affirmation and relish being thanked for their service. I’m not that guy.

So, when people come to thank you for your service while you’re wearing that hat, I imagine they think you are a steely-eyed killer. Maybe you are. I was not. I never fired a shot. I wish I had, but I’m glad I didn’t. Although my experience wasn’t without trauma, fear, and moments of life-or-death decisions, it wasn’t Vietnam. It wasn’t the Korengal Valley. It wasn’t the Chosin reservoir or the house-to-house fighting in Ramadi. It was just a deployment. It was nothing, in comparison. Those guys should wear the hats. Not me.

So, why don’t I wear the hat? Well, simply put, I don’t want the attention. You’re thinking to yourself, but you’re literally writing about being a veteran, so how is this different? The quick answer is that most people who read these articles have a relationship with me. It doesn’t just end at that thirty-second interchange. I don’t want the false accolades from strangers wishing to assuage their guilt for not serving, the “patriots” wanting to impart their opinions on politics or foreign conflicts, and mostly, I don’t want to take attention away from veterans far more worthy of praise. The ones that lost more than a year of their life. I feel fortunate that my experience was better than many others. So, for me, they deserve the attention.

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Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker from Bethania, North Carolina. His work has been published in Reptiles Magazine, Dirtbag Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, Backcountry Journal, Wildlife in North Carolina, SOFLETE, The Tarheel Guardsman, Wildsound Writing Festival, and others. His poetry collection “A Toad in a Glass Jar” is scheduled for publication in late fall 2024 by Dead Reckoning Collective. He has written three Children’s books and one Christian Devotional book. He filmed and directed a documentary about his deployment in Iraq with the Army called “Hammer Down.” He spends most of his free time wrangling toads.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.